Verizon Project: Bridging The Distance

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The Verizon Project consists of two multimedia artworks commissioned for installation at the Verizon headquarters situated in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. The larger artwork, about sixteen feet high, consists of an eight screen video wall embedded in the center of eight back-lit digital prints. This web page shows excerpts from the large artwork which is called "Bridging The Distance." There is no sound with this piece since it is installed in a heavy traffic area where sound would be an intrusion in the work place.

The eight back-lit digital prints, mounted in eight light boxes, are composed of computer designs printed using a light jet digital printer onto Duratrans film. The eight 42 inch LCD monitors nested in the center of the prints display digital film with a 1560 x 5682 pixel definition developed to integrate with both the imagery and high definition resolution of the prints.

The central four light boxes feature a graphic network of nodes distributed in classic ring, mesh, line, tree, star, and fully connected topologies. Some of the nodes display imagery details of Verizon's major centers of national communication. Moving over the network is an image of streaming music based on a score by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The eight LCD video screens display a single ten minute "looped" film that starts as eight segments, each segment setup to run on an individual computer. A software program called Watchout is used to program both the artwork as a whole (on/off, etc.) and the eight segments. The software synchronizes the eight segments so they run as "one" film and is used to program individual segment behavior - to start and stop, loop, adjust screen alignment, etc.

The film imagery begins with an introductory segment showing the growth of a network, node by node, culminating in a signaling pattern represented by animated nodes blinking with life. The segment Network follows with an extended section featuring different languages and the connected world of the internet. Streaming Music then flows across the screen with a stream of swimming text and a hexagonal formation of nodes exchanging music between them.

The next segment continues with a view of network nodes with websites moving within them in constant exchange with each other. Dominating the information exchange is the image of streaming music twisting through the space whilst small packets of html code and music are passed between the nodes. This sequence extends into a return to an open sea of html text and a parade of spherical nodes containing references to Verizon's core operations. The section finishes with similar nodes connected to a central performance hub; text and imagery are seen in a dance of interactive communication. The final section displays a 3D film of the same kind of network structure seen in the print. Moving through it is html code from one of the Verizon websites.